Of the Avengers left, if they go down that route of self-sacrifice via the Gauntlet, Thor is the most likely to survive with Cap being probably the "best" person to wield it.

Or a rebuilt Vision, now that his puke color scheme is gone.

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know...tomorrow."
-Agent Kay

The Infinity Gauntlet Thanos had one seems to be pretty trashed at this point. The question is, was the one at the forge a functional version or a copy of some sort? We know that Asgard had a fake/duplicate. Is that the case with this one, too? If not, is it Thanos-sized? In such a case, Hulk will get to wear a shiny gauntlet when it comes time (possibly). That would certainly make the big green guy happy.

It looked to just be a design model, I doubt it was functional.

Anyway, a little review:

The original comic went like so. Thanos picked up the Gems in a separate storyline, 'Thanos Quest'. He hooks up with Mephisto, Lady Death, and magicks his brother Starfox to his side, and conjures up a floating temple to himself and Lady Death in deep space. The finger-snap happens, the heroes get together, attack him. That goes about as well as might be expected. Adam Warlock and Silver Surfer arrange for the Cosmic Beings of the Marvel Universe to attack Thanos; this also goes poorly, and Thanos is elevated to such a position that he effectively becomes *the* Universe (replacing Eternity). His body is conveniently left comatose on the flying temple. Zombie Nebula, who he conjured to his side as a bit of grandiose arrogance, pulls the Gauntlet off his hand and reverses pretty much everything he did. This leads to some confusion as suddenly the newly-revived Good Guys have to ally with Thanos to get it away from her. Hijinks ensue; Adam Warlock ends up with the Gauntlet and divides the Gems among the Infinity Watch, and Thanos is thought dead (but is actually retired on the farm).

Changes in the MCU: No Lady Death. No Starfox (and thank fuck for that, there aren't many more creepy characters). No floating temple (yet). We are currently post-finger-snap. Thanos is sitting pretty on his farm; the Gauntlet may be fucked. Crucially, no Adam Warlock to tie the heroes together; he's been teased in Guardians of the Galaxy, but since presence is lacking, I think we can assume he probably won't be involved in this version of the story.

Without Lady Death, Thanos isn't trying to impress anybody. Maybe he'll have a burst of regret and conjure Gamora back from the dead. We haven't really any Cosmic Beings in the MCU (Knowhere is a *deceased* Celestial; Ego is likewise deceased; no other Celestials have been seen at present; the Elders of the Universe thus far have been distinctly unimpressive).

So it pretty much comes down to what Our Heroes might do against him, and what help they might be able to rustle up. Xandar and the Nova Corps are probably a wash (IIRC there's a mention of Xandar getting trashed for Thanos to pick up the purple stone). Maybe the Ravagers will try to avenge Peter Quill.

Bearing in mind that there are 2 films to come out before Infinity Gauntlet Pt 2: Captain Marvel and Ant-Man. I'm pretty sure Captain Marvel is going to cover the Kree-Skrull War, and might well introduce a Cosmic Being or two. In fact Captain Marvel is actually sort of a Cosmic Being in her own right... plus there's a tie to Thanos thanks to the classic Death of Captain Marvel, though I don't know if they're gonna play with that storyline in any way. Maybe something along the lines of 'Thanos killed the last Captain Marvel'? Ant-Man on the other hand... is a bit hard to figure on how it might play into Avengers 4. Certainly the Pym Particles have promise, but the last Ant-Man was a very self-contained film, HYDRA and Avengers side plot notwithstanding. I've heard guesses that the Quantum Realm or the Microverse or whatever might relate to Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel in some fashion though.

Rough prediction: Carol Danvers helps pull the Avengers back together, Tony and Steve patch things up, and maaaaaybe Tony learns magic? (pretty sure I saw a clip somewhere of Tony wearing the Cloak of Levitation... but we saw it dissolve with Doctor Strange, and it was a production clip, so it could've just been the actors screwing around...)

I may be mis-remembering things, but post-finger-snap we seem to have gone back to the original Avengers crew being alive while a lot of the newer characters are gone - Cap, Thor, Iron Man, Banna/Hulk, Black Widow and (maybe) Hawkeye are all still kicking, while Vision, Scarlet Witch, Falcon, Spiderman, Strange, Black Panther and Star Lord are all dead.

The only none-original Avenger still around seems to be Rhodes.

Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."

Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.

So why was there no Accords Sanctioned Avengers team? Spider-Man Homecoming pretty heavily implies there was one after CW but there's very little sign of it in Iw just War Machine hanging about and the implication Vision was as well until recently.

I mean maybe Ross just pissed everyone off that much in the two years. Rhodey's accord opinions seems to have radically changed off screen.

I can't criticise the movie for just not being what I expected but I was expecting an Accords team and Cap's Secret Avengers having to team up with some teeth clenched team work and gradual acceptance thing going on.

But the film didn't need more characters/plotlines I exepct. Av4 is presumably going to be much more focused on the team.

To the brave passengers and crew of the Kobayashi Maru... sucks to be you - Peter David

I may be mis-remembering things, but post-finger-snap we seem to have gone back to the original Avengers crew being alive while a lot of the newer characters are gone - Cap, Thor, Iron Man, Banna/Hulk, Black Widow and (maybe) Hawkeye are all still kicking, while Vision, Scarlet Witch, Falcon, Spiderman, Strange, Black Panther and Star Lord are all dead.

The only none-original Avenger still around seems to be Rhodes.

It's basically down to the originals plus Rhodey, Rocket, Nebula, and Okoye that we've seen on screen.

So why was there no Accords Sanctioned Avengers team? Spider-Man Homecoming pretty heavily implies there was one after CW but there's very little sign of it in Iw just War Machine hanging about and the implication Vision was as well until recently.

Who'd be on it?

They were down to Iron Man, War Machine, and Vision basically. Peter turned down the invitation and T'Challa wasn't an Avenger anyway. And that's basically all that was left.

So why was there no Accords Sanctioned Avengers team? Spider-Man Homecoming pretty heavily implies there was one after CW but there's very little sign of it in Iw just War Machine hanging about and the implication Vision was as well until recently.

Who'd be on it?

They were down to Iron Man, War Machine, and Vision basically. Peter turned down the invitation and T'Challa wasn't an Avenger anyway. And that's basically all that was left.

I don't know? Captain Marvel, Quake, Luke Cage and Iron Fist, USAgent? I wasn't expecting them to be existing characters but are we were expecting Ross to be happy that's taken over a team considering of Vision? I'd expect a recruitment drive for new heroes.

But like I said with everything else going on they can't really be introducing new heroes.

To the brave passengers and crew of the Kobayashi Maru... sucks to be you - Peter David

Remember that TV characters don't exist in the movies, and Captain Marvel is frankly too big a gun to introduce without explanation. Like "Hey suddenly there's this extra person who's as strong as the Hulk and can fly and shoot lasers out of her hands".

Remember that TV characters don't exist in the movies, and Captain Marvel is frankly too big a gun to introduce without explanation. Like "Hey suddenly there's this extra person who's as strong as the Hulk and can fly and shoot lasers out of her hands".

Don't tell the TV Shows that!

They're going to have to do that next movie anyway. And they managed it with Spidey and Black Panther pretty well.

Look, I know the reasons dude, it still seems a little odd from an in-universe perspective that no-one's stepping up to pick up the Avenger's slack.

To the brave passengers and crew of the Kobayashi Maru... sucks to be you - Peter David

The Captain Marvel movie will have happened between now and IW2, and it's set in the '90s and will presumably explain what Carol has been doing for the last couple of decades (probably off having space adventures).

The Captain Marvel movie will have happened between now and IW2, and it's set in the '90s and will presumably explain what Carol has been doing for the last couple of decades (probably off having space adventures).

So audiences will be more primed for her appearance on the big stage.

The weird part will be explaining how lucky everyone was that she survived Thanos' grand coin flip.

"Oh no, oh yeah, tell me how can it be so fair
That we dying younger hiding from the police man over there
Just for breathing in the air they wanna leave me in the chair
Electric shocking body rocking beat streeting me to death"
- A.B. Original, Report to the Mist

"I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately."
- George Carlin

The Captain Marvel movie will have happened between now and IW2, and it's set in the '90s and will presumably explain what Carol has been doing for the last couple of decades (probably off having space adventures).

So audiences will be more primed for her appearance on the big stage.

The weird part will be explaining how lucky everyone was that she survived Thanos' grand coin flip.

Perhaps the only scenario where Captain Marvel survives the coin flip is the one where Strange gives up the time stone.

Humans are such funny creatures. We are selfish about selflessness, yet we can love something so much that we can hate something.

Thor spends way too much time on his own personal side-quest tangent that only seems to exist to wank over him followed by contributing little to the film. The Forge situation was a pitfall of lame drama stupidity.

Thor has to manually restart the damn thing through the most stupid method possible. This would have been more thematic AND consistent if Thor had used his non hammer required lightning skills learned in Ragnarok to destroy the magic ice that had jammed the mechanism instead of the bizarre pulling. It is bad enough that you have Thor floating around in space without any protection, obviously breathing and somehow speaking to Rocket in vaccum.

This is further compounded by the colossal WTF when the Dwarf states it would take a "FEW" minutes to fix the Iris to get the forge working. Thor decides this is an unreasonable amount of time to wait so he is going to commit potential suicide by taking the blast from a Neutron Star. Thor has no reason to be rushing this hard because he has no idea what is going on. The only way this remotely makes sense is if Thor actually KNOWS he cannot be killed by the star which makes this entire scene pointlessly over-dramatic. Out of universe, Thor is not going to die, so again, this entire side jaunt comes across as a pitiful attempt to keep Thor active in the film while keeping him benched for as long as possible.

How did Thor even know he had to teleport to Wakanda in the first place ?
Even when Thor finally shows up, he spends the battle knocking out the garbage and completely misses the Thanos VS. Avengers on Earth until lamely coming in at the end.

-----

The film comes across as really inconsistent in what Thanos and the Avengers can actually do. Thanos beats the shit out of the Hulk with no issue and it is implied he did the same to Thor. A single blow from Thanos should be turning Iron Man and Captain America into a bloody smear.
Later on, Iron Man hits Thanos repeatedly to make him bleed and Nebula repeatedly attempts to stab the dude implying that he CAN be stabbed / cut.

Why the fuck are they trying to pull the gauntlet off of him rather than severing his arm. Iron Man and Strange both appear to have bladed weapons so it seems like that entire 'struggle' to get the glove off had a much quicker solution. Not to mention that Strange can literally generate portals that severs anything caught between them.

As for Strange - I really do not like the way the Time Stone usage is depicted here. Using it as a cheap time rewind trick is eye-rollingly predictable but pulling the "I can view every future at once instantly" is one of those things that sounds cool but destroys the entire movie.

It is fairly obvious this film is trying to convey that Strange is playing for the future that will let them win but the moment Strange comes out with that line, anything Strange does is pointless and the film becomes a wasted exercise in trying to create any drama.
What was the point in Strange and Co. making the effort to get the glove off of Thanos if Strange knows it will not work ?
How does wasting all that effort to get it off help generate the future that will let them win ?
Though, it ACTUALLY would have worked and only failed because Star Lord messed it up.

It was simpler for Strange to play that entire pointless battle out for some sort of "future" win compared to stopping Star Lord from screwing up getting the glove off Thanos ?

This is further compounded by the colossal WTF when the Dwarf states it would take a "FEW" minutes to fix the Iris to get the forge working. Thor decides this is an unreasonable amount of time to wait so he is going to commit potential suicide by taking the blast from a Neutron Star.

No he doesn't. It will take a few minutes to MELT the metal. He says nothing about fixing the Iris, probably because he can't. You only get Stormbreaker because he had already made the mold, he can't actually do anything beside pull some leavers and hit things.

"May God stand between you and harm in all the empty places where you must walk." - Ancient Egyptian Blessing

Ivanova is always right.
I will listen to Ivanova.
I will not ignore Ivanova's recommendations. Ivanova is God.
AND, if this ever happens again, Ivanova will personally rip your lungs out! - Babylon 5 Mantra

How did Thor even know he had to teleport to Wakanda in the first place ?

My personal headcanon is that Thor's acquisition of the Bifrost powers includes some version of Heimdal's sight. He must after all have some way to aim or direct it, and in this case to do so despite Wakanda's hidden nature. Either that or he simply wills it and the Bifrost 'just knows' but that feels weaker.

Even when Thor finally shows up, he spends the battle knocking out the garbage and completely misses the Thanos VS. Avengers on Earth until lamely coming in at the end.

I could be wrong, but I don't think Thor is aware of just how far progressed Thanos is. Last he heard, Thano had just two stones. Maybe I'm remembering wrong but I think after Thanos gives his.. advice.. only then does Thor see the Gauntlet completed but it's too late...

Why the fuck are they trying to pull the gauntlet off of him rather than severing his arm.

Given what it took to draw even a single drop of blood, that may take time they just don't have. It could also be that, while Mantis can keep him sorta under control, strong enough stimuli might break him out of it, such as a prolonged, undoubtedly painful amputation. Even Quill just punching him made his stir after all. Could be they considered both and felt pulling it off was more likely to succeed.

BTW: Those folks condemning Quill for punching Thanos have never had a loved one die suddenly and at another's hand.
So... yeah. Quill finds out Gamora's gone, after he's been kicking himself for 'being weak' and not protecting her (and killing her) when she begged. Now it's too late to make it right. Of course he's gonna start beating the shit out of the bastard that killed her. If Mantis could have kept Thanos frozen, Quill would have happily beat him to death, no matter how long it took, because the pain inside needed let out.

That's what Revenge really is, you know. You're hurting so much from losing someone, that you want the bastard who did it to hurt more.

Librium Arcana, Where Gamers Play!
Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them."A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet

BTW: Those folks condemning Quill for punching Thanos have never had a loved one die suddenly and at another's hand.

Yeah, that's wrong.

"Oh no, oh yeah, tell me how can it be so fair
That we dying younger hiding from the police man over there
Just for breathing in the air they wanna leave me in the chair
Electric shocking body rocking beat streeting me to death"
- A.B. Original, Report to the Mist

"I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately."
- George Carlin

To his credit though, Star-Lord showed enough restraint to not simply unload on Thanos the way he did on Ego when the latter told him how he killed his mother. Too bad that single punch was enough to break the hold Mantis had on Thanos and ruin the whole thing.

It's no use debating a moron; they drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.

Just because you have the attention span of a fruit fly doesn't mean the rest of us are so encumbered.

"As you know science is not fact"- HuskerJay
"The Delta Fyler [sic] isn't even a shuttle craft" -HuskerJay69
"The Dominion War wasn't really all that bad"- Admiral Mercury

There are a lot of things that I could praise about this film, like the spectacle, and the performances (particularly of Stark, Thanos, and Thor), and the fact that this movie made me love Cap again. And there are a lot of things that I could criticize, like the grating humor in some of the Guardians' scenes, or the seemingly-cynical overall tone, or the over-long climactic battles. But rather than writing an essay breaking down the film scene by scene, I'm just going to focus on what I feel is the main question: Does the film say that Thanos is right?

First off, let me just say that Thanos is one of the stronger film supervillains I've seen to-date, though I'd credit that mostly on the actor's performance. Right now, going off first impressions, he'd probably edge out Magneto as my second-favorite film supervillain after Ledger's Joker (add in TV, and he'd be rivaling Agents of SHIELD's Grant Ward for second place). But let's look at his motivations.

Thanos claims that he wants to destroy half the life in the universe in order to retain balance and prevent resources from being depleted. He justifies this as necessary, and fair, since he will be killing rich and poor alike without prejudice. He deploys rhetoric that will be familiar to anyone who has ever argued with wannabe-HARD MEN, about how only he has the will to do what's necessary, whatever the price. This is contrasted with Cap's view that "We don't trade lives". At first glance, the film seems, unfortunately, to validate Thanos's view, and I'm already bracing for a decade of arguing with internet tough guys claiming that Thanos is the real hero, because HARD MEN MAKING HARD CHOICES. But is this really the case?

Throughout the film, there is a recurring theme of characters being forced to make sadistically cruel choices, between sacrificing someone they love for the greater good, or refusing to do so. Again and again, the heroes refuse to do so, or at least hesitate to do so, and again and again, the result is that Thanos wins. Thanos, meanwhile, sacrifices the one person he claims to love* for victory and succeeds, while Strange effectively sacrifices half the universe by surrendering the Time Stone, in the hopes of creating a path to ultimate victory in the future. Thanos also claims that Gamora's world is thriving and happy now, after he "balanced" its population (more on this shortly). So on the surface, the film appears to validate Thanos's view, with a cynical message that the only way to win is to sacrifice those you love for the ultimate goal. But there's another side to it.

Ultimately, I suspect (or hope) that the next film will refute Thanos's view, but let's look at Infinity War as it is. Certainly, the heroes lose when they refuse to sacrifice some to save others. But when the heroes do make the hard sacrifices, it doesn't do them any good. When Peter tries to shoot Gamora, Thanos reveals that he has warped reality to ensure that Peter fails. When Wanda tries to destroy the gem and sacrifice Vision, Thanos just uses the Time Stone to go back and prevent her from doing so. And while Strange seemingly sacrifices half the universe to save a single life (Stark's), it is also implied that his ultimate plan hinges on not sacrificing that one life (Stark's) to stop Thanos. If anything, the message seems to be that it doesn't matter what the heroes do- the villains will ultimately win (though we will have to wait to see the ultimate effects of Strange's actions).

Of course, if defeat is certain either way, then one could argue that that is all the more reason to hold true to your principles. Though Joss Whedon is no longer a part of the Avengers films, I am reminded of a line from his series "Angel"- "If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do."

In any case, though, five minutes' thought will make it abundantly clear that Thanos's plan is both unnecessary, and doomed to failure (or it would be in any sane universe). Others, I think, have already pointed out in this thread how other options are available to Thanos with the power of the Infinity Gauntlet- options which he never even considers before opting for exterminating half the universe. But his plan won't even accomplish its intent, logically. Wipe out half the people in a society, and it won't become more stable or prosperous or peaceful. It's infrastructure and economy will collapse (we see a bit of this, on a small scale, in the after-credits scene). Hell, if his genocide extends to all life forms, every ecosystem in the universe probably just collapsed. And if human history is any indication, the people will not be happier nor the society more stable- people who have suffered great loss and fear, who are made to feel helpless by someone more powerful, will lash out. And on that note, I'd love it if the next film revealed that the reason Gamora's planet is thriving now is that they all united in their mutual hatred of their common enemy, Thanos.

Of course, none of this ultimately matters as far as Cap's choice is concerned. Because if he crossed that line, sacrificed one man for the "greater good", he wouldn't be Captain America any more. He would have taken the first step on the path to being someone like Thanos.

As for Thanos, he doesn't consider the alternatives, or the flaws of his plan, because he's ultimately driven not by a genuine desire to help others, but by a desire to vindicate his crazy idea. He talks about how his plan was necessary, and his world was destroyed because it didn't do what he said. About how he was called a mad man, and you can practically hear him thinking "I'll show them all!" He portrays himself as generous, magnanimous, honorable- but he seems to enjoy tormenting his foes, offering them sadistic dilemmas and then proving that their choice was meaningless in the end anyway. He's a sadist and a narcissist, and his ultimate fantasy is that he will save the universe when no one else was strong enough to do it, and that everyone will thank him for it. He's not the ultimate pragmatist, doing a horrible but necessary thing because no one else can. He's a narcissist, destroying half the universe to prove that he was right and expecting the other half to thank him for it. Which is why his victory is ultimately hollow- he wasn't doing this to help anyone, but to vindicate himself. He sacrificed everything to achieve this, and thinks he's the hero. But the universe won't thank him. All he has done is wipe out innocent billions, plunge the universe into chaos, and ensure that everyone left alive in the universe will be lining up for the privilege of tearing him a new asshole (which ties right back to the very first Avengers film, when Stark told Loki that if they couldn't save the Earth, they'd avenge it).

*By the way, I completely agree with Gamora here- what Thanos felt for her wasn't love, or at any rate not love for her. Thanos is a narcissist, and I expect that he "loved" Gamora in much the same way that I imagine someone like Trump loves his children- as extensions of his HIS being, HIS dreams, HIS will. He outright tells Gamora earlier that he sees all her positive qualities as coming from him, and that he hoped she would sit on his throne. Her betrayal, and her death, hurt him because he sees her as a part of himself, made in his image, rather than as who SHE is.

"Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?"

"Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow though."

-Generals Sherman and Grant, the Battle of Shiloh.

"They are nearer to me than the other side, in thought and sentiment, though bitterly hostile personally. They are utterly lawless - the unhandiest devils in the world to deal with - but after all their faces are set Zion-wards."- Lincoln on radical Abolitionists.

"You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?"-Terry Pratchett's DEATH.

There are a lot of things that I could praise about this film, like the spectacle, and the performances (particularly of Stark, Thanos, and Thor), and the fact that this movie made me love Cap again.

I'm curious about this. Because a) Cap didn't have much material in this film and b) his character seems to have remained consistent with his previous portrayals. He still says suck it to Ross and the Accords.

To the brave passengers and crew of the Kobayashi Maru... sucks to be you - Peter David

There are a lot of things that I could praise about this film, like the spectacle, and the performances (particularly of Stark, Thanos, and Thor), and the fact that this movie made me love Cap again.

I'm curious about this. Because a) Cap didn't have much material in this film and b) his character seems to have remained consistent with his previous portrayals. He still says suck it to Ross and the Accords.

The difference is in the circumstances.

In Civil War, he brushes off the Accords because (from my point of view) he doesn't want to be accountable to any higher authority, and because his personal relationship with Buckey trumps everything else. Granted, Buckey was being wrongfully persecuted, but he seemed ready to revolt regardless.

In Avengers, meanwhile, there's an existential threat to the entire world, and some of their best heroes are missing/likely dead. That's a time when you need all hands on deck. Cap's a big enough man to let bygones be bygones. Ross isn't. In fairness, Ross couldn't possibly have known the full scope of the threat yet, but Cap was quite right in telling him to fuck off when he started letting red tape get in the way of an existential battle.

In a way, though, both Cap and Stark are also foils to Thanos, and I wish that the film had played with that more. Cap and Thanos are both proud men inflexibly committed to their ideal (though I much prefer Cap's). But whereas Thanos will casually sacrifice billions to save billions, Cap will not sacrifice one under any circumstances, even if it risks losing everything.

Stark, meanwhile, is actually a lot like Thanos in my view- both arrogant, and both with a tendency to react to a perceived threat by latching onto an idea and running with it to dangerous extremes (see Stark's obsession with the suits in Iron Man 3, his construction of Ultron and Vision to protect Earth in Avengers 2, and his pushing the Accords). The difference being that Stark has friends around him who will reign in his excesses, and also enough self-doubt to eventually admit his mistakes.

"Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?"

"Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow though."

-Generals Sherman and Grant, the Battle of Shiloh.

"They are nearer to me than the other side, in thought and sentiment, though bitterly hostile personally. They are utterly lawless - the unhandiest devils in the world to deal with - but after all their faces are set Zion-wards."- Lincoln on radical Abolitionists.

"You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?"-Terry Pratchett's DEATH.

Despite some pacing issues, and the perhaps-unavoidable reality that this film is going to be nigh-impenetrable to someone not familiar with the MCU as a whole, I have to say that the filmmakers did a very solid job, overall, of weaving all of these plots and characters and places together into a cohesive whole, and given each major character (aside from Hawkeye and Ant Man, who were cut) a chance to shine. That must have been a hell of a job, plotting this film, and its one I think very few writers and directors of Hollywood blockbusters today could pull off so well, especially when I compare to plotting cluster fucks in the same genre (see Batman v Superman, for example).

I've followed the MCU with interest, not only because I enjoy superhero films, but because they've attempted something that no one else has really tried before on this scale- to create a shared world of interconnected stories and series in a big budget film format. I have a lot of respect for a company that's willing to take a risk on trying something bold and creative and new, and even more if they can pull it off. Infinity War (and its sequel) are the biggest test of whether the experiment will ultimately succeed, or fall flat at the climax. I had felt that the MCU was losing steam, but thus far, from a structural perspective at least, Infinity War largely pulls it off, in my opinion, and perhaps more importantly, it was an entertaining and genuinely surprising film. So I tip my hat to the writers and directors.

"Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?"

"Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow though."

-Generals Sherman and Grant, the Battle of Shiloh.

"They are nearer to me than the other side, in thought and sentiment, though bitterly hostile personally. They are utterly lawless - the unhandiest devils in the world to deal with - but after all their faces are set Zion-wards."- Lincoln on radical Abolitionists.

"You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?"-Terry Pratchett's DEATH.

Despite some pacing issues, and the perhaps-unavoidable reality that this film is going to be nigh-impenetrable to someone not familiar with the MCU as a whole

The film is 100% aimed at and assumes an audience already familiar with the MCU, really anyone who sees it without having seen any of the 18 films prior has no right to complain they couldn't understand it. At 2hrs 40m already there would be no room to waste time (re)introducing established characters.

In part, the success of the sequel depends on how both Ant-Man and the Wasp and more significantly Captain Marvel fare, with the latter expected to be a game-changer for the heroes.

It's no use debating a moron; they drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.

Just because you have the attention span of a fruit fly doesn't mean the rest of us are so encumbered.

"As you know science is not fact"- HuskerJay
"The Delta Fyler [sic] isn't even a shuttle craft" -HuskerJay69
"The Dominion War wasn't really all that bad"- Admiral Mercury